{"id":1027,"date":"2007-02-26T07:48:06","date_gmt":"2007-02-26T12:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2007-02-26T07:48:06","modified_gmt":"2007-02-26T12:48:06","slug":"picture-taking-plus-minuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/02\/26\/picture-taking-plus-minuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Picture taking, plus &#038; minuses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/besthike.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/26\/not-having-a-camera-is-a-good-thing\/\">Rick<\/a> linked to <a href=\"http:\/\/asthecrowflies.org\/2007\/01\/28\/pictures\/\">Crow<\/a>&#8216;s argument against taking a camera along on outdoor excursions.   How I see it:<\/p>\n<p><strong>PLUSES<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sharing: <\/strong> I hike, my wife doesn&#8217;t, but she likes to see what I&#8217;m seeing out there.  And my weekly photo essays have developed a bit of a following, so I feel sort of obliged to keep the customers satisfied.      <\/li>\n<li><strong>Learning: <\/strong> It&#8217;s easy to snap a shutter release, but taking pictures worth looking  at is a knack you can spend a lifetime acquiring.      <\/li>\n<li><strong>Observing:<\/strong> Taking pictures obliges you to see in a new way, and it teaches you to keep an eye out for vistas, wildlife and other sights you might miss otherwise.      <\/li>\n<li><strong>Remembering:<\/strong>   The Kodak moments, obviously, but also something else: the rare &#8212; but in my mind way cool &#8212; experience of a sense memory, when your brain suddenly recalls the  sounds and smells of something long forgotten.  Pictures can be handy for triggering those memories.      <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>MINUSES<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The weight: <\/strong>  Good cameras are heavy; taking them along obliges you to leave something behind.  Compact point-and-shoots take weight off, but you sacrifice image quality.   <\/li>\n<li><strong>The inconvenience: <\/strong>  Having to break up your stride to take a picture is bad enough when you&#8217;re alone, but in a group you&#8217;re either changing your pace to keep up or missing shots to avoid slowing everybody else down.    <\/li>\n<li><strong>The moments:  <\/strong>   This was Crow&#8217;s main point, that  time spent looking for great pictures comes at the expense of having great experiences.  I find this point persuasive enough to encourage the shutterbugs to at least  consider leaving the camera at home.   <\/li>\n<li><strong>The reality that pictures <em>do<\/em> lie: <\/strong>  Photographic evidence is in many cases  highly overrated. To say that a two-dimensional image captured for a thousandth of a second within the narrow field of a camera&#8217;s shutter opening represents &#8220;reality&#8221; is an exaggeration at best.  Pictures are nice, but they convey such a tiny slice of the experience of <em>living<\/em> that it&#8217;s hardly a major sacrifice to go cameraless.    <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As usual, I&#8217;m in the middle of the road.  It seems like you could become so preoccupied with chasing great images that you&#8217;d risk losing the visceral thrill of being out there, but I&#8217;m thinking if you asked the great outdoor photographers about this, they&#8217;d say the visceral thrill is what gets them out there to begin with. <P><br \/>\nThis reminds me of the question that helps simplify the decision to try lightweight or ultralight backpacking: are you a hiker, or a camper?  If you&#8217;re a hiker with trivial interest in camping, then why take along a ton of camping gear? But if you&#8217;re a camper, why sacrifice your fun just to walk a few more miles? If you&#8217;re a photographer, a camera&#8217;s sort of a requirement.   But if not, why complicate things in a place where the point is to have an uncomplicated experience?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rick linked to Crow&#8216;s argument against taking a camera along on outdoor excursions. How I see it: PLUSES Sharing: I hike, my wife doesn&#8217;t, but she likes to see what I&#8217;m seeing out there. And my weekly photo essays have&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2007\/02\/26\/picture-taking-plus-minuses\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}